Municipal and highway lighting systems provide roadway illumination and signaling (primarily via traffic lights). These functions are separate and provided by physically distinct fixtures. The cost to install, maintain and operate such lighting systems is considerable, and for this reason they are deployed strictly on an as-needed basis. The technology and deployment criteria have not changed significantly in many years.
Emergency communication systems, by contrast, have advanced considerably and attracted substantial investment by municipal, state and federal government. For example, the “AMBER Alert” program involves cooperation among law-enforcement agencies, broadcasters, transportation agencies, and the wireless industry to disseminate widespread alerts in child-abduction cases. AMBER Alerts interrupt regular programming and appear on radio and television and on highway signs, as well as on lottery tickets, wireless devices such as mobile phones, and over the Internet.
Unfortunately, even widely adopted and intensively deployed programs such as the AMBER alert system have limits in terms of the signaling modalities that may be mobilized. Systems to warn of other types of emergencies, such as impending tornadoes and floods, have hardly advanced at all beyond sirens and media broadcasts. Indeed, despite the increasing ability of local officials not only to detect emergency conditions but also to identify the specific regions at risk, their ability to actually issue warnings to individuals in the affected areas is limited by existing infrastructure—which, as noted above, utilizes highly task-specific fixtures. It is unrealistic to envision investment in parallel signaling systems when many communities, faced with strained municipal budgets, are actually cutting back on basic streetlight illumination.